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05 February
Power, Water and Broadband: Digital Ireland Takes Backwards Step
Eircom Fails Internet Users.
by SoftwareGuru
Friday 30th January 2009
A gross error of judgement occurred last week at the High Court in Dublin between big-four music labels Warner, Sony BMG, EMI and Universal and Irish internet provider Eircom.
Despite a report in Britain highlighting the key reasons why the policy is fundamentally wrong, Eircom has agreed to implement the 'three strikes and you’re out' policy against illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) downloaders in Ireland.
Three strikes and you’re out
Leaving aside the point that the entire music industry business model is deeply flawed and out of date, even stepping over the fact that the vast majority of artists never make any money due to record company excess and greed - the major record companies will now be able to remove Irish broadband from homes on a whim.
Ed Stourton summarised the position of the Digital Britain report as seeing access to broadband as being on a par with access to power and water: an essential service for the way we live now. A view shared by British PM Gordon Brown.
It’s impossible to see how you could square a belief that broadband is an essential service with arbitrary removal of that service on the whim of a record company.
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"3 strikes and you're out"
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Tackling Piracy
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The Trend Of Not Buying Music As An Individual Product.
At Software4Students, piracy along with any illegal online activity is something we do take very seriously.
However, this judgement has the potential to be a real Pandora's box.
How would users feel if they had their broadband cut off if Eircom found them to be using pirated copies of software?
Arguably, it would anger users and quickly push consumers closer towards using more open source programs which are already growing in popularity.
Older music lovers may not have a problem with the judgement but it's worth remembering that the children that listen to music today are ultimately the future adults who are depended upon to maintain the major labels' flawed business model.
Don't be surprised if a future generation of Irish adults continue their lifetime habit of not buying major label music due to the resentment caused from broadband removal and hassle with ISPs.
Have the major record companies effectively written their own death certificate?
Will this be the moment history defines as the death of the record label?
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Even Better Than The Real Thing.
The internet has changed the way people enjoy their free time. TV shows can be streamed and downloaded while bands' popular songs can be watched at anytime for free on the likes of YouTube.
The experience of going out, buying a record and enjoying it is simply an outdated concept along the lines of sending a telegram.
Technology and consumer behaviour has changed. The music industry has failed to adapt.
In its last breath to stay profitable it has completely missed the opportunity to create a new way to interact with music lovers and will now actively seek to remove their broadband.
Remember tapes? Imagine if playing a copied tape had resulted in your stereo being taken away.
It's a ludicrous thought and yet even that example doesn't go far enough to illustrate just how wrong this judgement is.
Don't be surprised if a new start-up company appears to fill the void in the same way that Google appeared out of nowhere and showed Yahoo! a thing or two about search.
Ireland's music fans will have the last say.
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"What's best for music fans?"
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Posted by
admin
at
09:52
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